The Barrakee Mystery

Chapter Twenty

A Grain of Sugar

SERGEANT KNOWLES seated himself at the table with the air of a man weighed down by exasperation. Producing a watch, he set it before him.

“The time now is precisely twenty-one minutes to three,” he said crisply, anger and chagrin in his tone. “We arrived here at a little after two o’clock. We find our man gone. From the preparations for his flight, Bony, what time do you think he left?”

“About midday,” replied the half-caste promptly; then seeing the interrogative rise of the policeman’s eyebrows, he added: “There are parts of blood in the dish not yet dry. The fly maggots on the meat left uncovered are about three hours old.”

The uniformed man smiled acknowledgement of gifts greater than his. He said:

“Assuming that he lost no time after receiving the warning how long do you think it would take him to make all these preparations for a bolt?”

“From the way in which the sheep was skinned Clair didn’t make his preparations in a leisurely fashion. He could not, however, hasten the drying action of the blood when fixing the feathers to his feet. I should think it would be all of two hours.”

“Say ten o’clock.” Sergeant Knowles was silent for a space. The others, standing about the table, watched him. Then: “At about ten o’clock this morning, you, Mr Thornton, and Mortimore, the trooper, and myself, were at the shearing-shed. Till then only two people knew that we were after Clair-your wife and your niece-and, according to Bony, Clair was warned about that precise time.”

The squatter’s tanned face flushed. A hard light came into his eyes.

“You are accusing either my wife or my niece?” he asked with surprising mildness.

“I am accusing no one, Mr Thornton. I am merely stating a summary of facts. However, there is this to consider. The conversation between them andmyself occurred on the house veranda, and could easily have been overheard by anyone in the rooms on the one side, or concealed among the grape-vines at either end. It will be necessary to question the servants. What do you think, Bony?”

The detective-inspector smiled slightly.

“There is no definite proof that Clair was warned over the telephone,” he said.

“Then how else could he have been warned? Are there tracks of any recent visitor, on foot or on horse?”

“No, Sergeant,” Bony replied sweetly. “But there are minor ways of conveying a warning, such as smoke signals. I am inclined, however, to believe that the telephone was the method used, but we must remember that we have no proof. With your permission, might I suggest that the country is in a very dry condition; that the only watering-places are the wells and tanks and bores; and that your man must visit a well, tank, or bore for water? As there are so few wells, tanks and bores, why not havethem watched?”

“What about the river?”

“There is too much traffic on either side of the river to suit Clair,” replied Bony. “Clair will make for the safest place in the world-the Northern Territory. Whilst I take a walkabout around the place-for there’s always the chance that Clair may drop something which would indicate his travelling direction-Mr Thornton, I am sure, would not mind making you a plan showing all the watering places.” Turning in the doorway, he added: “If Clair has dropped so much as a hair of his head I shall find it. Don’t wait here for me.”

Pausing at the big car to remove one of the waterbags to take with him, Bony set off on his walkabout. Noting the encircling windswept sand-hills, he struck southward till he gained the long line of ridges and miniature peaks, thence to follow the ridges. And whilst he walked he read and thought, and the thoughts were not allied to the readings.

When he had completed the circle he seated himself upon the summit of a ridge, satisfied that so far he had followed Clair’s mind correctly, for exactly west of the tank he crossed Clair’s tracks, slight indentations here and there, as though a party of centipedes had held a dance on separated patches. Only upon that very soft sand would such faint indentations be left by feathered feet, and only then during a windless period.

Again Bony completed a circle about the Basin, but this time keeping about a mile out from the sand-hills. He walked rapidly, his head thrust forward and down, but his gaze kept continually on a point ten or a dozen feet in front of him.

A second circle two miles from the tank was completed, without result. The tracker kept moving with untiring effort, now and then stopping to make and light a cigarette and to take a single mouthful of water from the canvas bag. And whilst the walkabout was in course, whilst his eyes missed nothing of the passage of sheep, rabbits, kangaroos, cats, emus, birds and insects, his mind continually dwelt upon the mysterious warning given to Clair.

Who had been Clair’s friend?

Bony sighed audibly, a happy contented sigh. Supposing the friend proved to be one of the servants, say Martha, then the affair would doubtless be explained by admiration or love. But supposing the informer had been Mrs Thornton, or Kate Flinders. If so, that would mean that theThorntons were mixed up in this sordid murder, or at least knew more of what lay behind it than they professed.

What was Clair’s motive? Why had he tracked King Henry for nearly twenty years, for Bony now firmly believed that the gaunt man was the white man Pontius Pilate said haddied. The feud or vendetta had started at Barrakee, and had ended there. What caused the feud? What was the feud?

So far as the actual killing was concerned Bony had completely lost interest. He had indicated the killer to the police, and thus considered his work to be practically accomplished, for it must be remembered that the half-caste detective had strange ideas of the duties of a detective-inspector, and of an ordinary police-inspector, sergeant, or trooper. Where Bony’s interest had been inflamed and was kept inflamed was the mysterious motive actuating the crime, and compelling that long tracking, murderous, relentless, covering nigh twenty years.

Until that day the whole affair appeared to be ranged outside Barrakee, the commission of the crime at Barrakee being merely a coincidence. But the warning to Clair was proof positive that someone at Barrakee had knowledge of the deed other than that elicited, and doubtless also knowledge of the motive. And if he or she possessed knowledge of the motive, even if no knowledge of the murder at the time of the act, that person was, likely enough, at Barrakee twenty years before.

Out came Bony’s list of fish among which was a sting-ray. Producing a pencil, he placed a dot in front of all the names, bar three. For a while he closed his eyes and mused. Then suddenly he placed a dot before the name of Mrs Thornton. Five seconds later his pencil made a mark in front of the name of her husband, leaving then but one name unmarked.

“Martha!” he said aloud. “Martha was at Barrakee twenty years ago. Martha doubtless was in the dining room and heard the sergeant tell the Ladies of Barrakee what his visit was for. Martha is black: so was King Henry. There is undoubtedly more black than white in this affair. The moving finger is trembling, undecided, but inclined to point towards Martha.”

Pocketing his list and pencil, Bony rose and started out on his third circle. The sun was going down. The air was rapidly cooling. He noted that the ants were more numerous and more industrious now that the surface of the earth was cooler.

Half an hour later, when the sun’s rim touched the mulga scrub, he suddenly halted and stared fixedly at a point on the ground. Dropping the bag, he picked up a twig and with it began to tease a red meat-ant. The ant was carrying a particle of white matter and fought for several seconds to retain it. When finally it let fall its tiny load, Bony picked it up with thepoint of his penknife and laid it on the palm of an open hand.

He prodded it with his fingernail. It was hard, faceted, light -reflecting upon one side. It was a grain of white sugar. Clair had dropped from his ration-bags a fatal clue.